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December 12, 2005

Narnia Cometh

With Friday's release of C.S. Lewis's classic text, The Lion, The Witch, and the Wardrobe, the culture wars are renewed once more. A small fraction of atheists and Christians have decided to make the film the centerpiece in the ongoing battle between faith in God and faith that there is no God, as is reasonably well chronicled in this Washington Post article.

Personally, I don't have a dog in the fight over the existence of God. I am an agnostic in that; I'm well aware that there is no physical evidence of God, and therefore I am skeptical of the existence of such a being. At the same time, there are an inordinate number of very smart people who do believe in the existence of God, and given that one cannot prove a negative (and please spare me the paens of inductive reasoning: inductive reasoning is a valuable tool, but by definition it cannot prove anything), I'm not ready to take it on faith that God doesn't exist, either. Doubtless this will bring cries of outrage from evangelicals of all stripes, but I can live with that.

I do think, however, that those who attack Lewis' work simply because of its Christian elements are doing themselves and the rest of us no favors. Regardless of your personal feelings regarding Christianity or religion in general, tales like TLTWATW are of great value to all of us. Not because they attempt to teach us how or what to believe, nor because they're just plain fun to read. Nor is it because of the truths they attempt to impart, although that is a factor. No, tales like TLTWATW are of value to us because they inspire us, and there is little of less value than that.

We are all born with a debt: we owe the reaper one life, and he collects on all of us sooner or later. For most of human history, there was no time to worry about this, and for much of the world even today that is still the case. Subsistence existence leaves little time for concerns about what contributions we may make to the world. But for a small but growing fraction of the world's population over the past century, the concerns of subsistence are sufficiently remote that those people have had to ask themselves the purpose of their lives. Religion has filled that need for a number of people: the belief that proper living here on Earth will earn one a spot in a better place after death is a powerful force, as evidenced by the disturbing number of people willing to murder the 'other' in the belief doing so will guarantee them a place in the afterlife. But in the absense of religion, people still need something to answer that question: what is their purpose in life? There may or may not be something beyond this life, but we all feel the desire for our lives to have some meaning beyond what we see here, whether it's making a difference after we're gone or achieving some status in an afterlife. Because without that, life becomes somewhat meaningless: we're born, we live, we die, that's it? Such an outcome, however plausible, is rather difficult to swallow.

Which brings us back to TLTWATW. Yes, the book is consciously about a higher power who is instrumental in saving Narnia. But it is also about four children without whom Narnia would remain under the thumb of the evil witch. More broadly it is about believing in things that are greater than ourselves, something that is intrinsic in the human condition. Setting aside the questions of Aslan and higher powers, the Pevensie children in TLTWATW (and later) risk their lives to help others. They are nearly killed on numerous occasions, and for what: for, as several Narnians echo, a free Narnia. One can certainly argue that there are more noble causes (true love, of course, springs to mind), but helping others to be free certainly must be counted as a noble cause, and contributing to such a cause seems like a fine way to spend one's life, at least in this observer's humble opinion. But regardless of your own personal opinion regarding the nobility of that particular cause, it is a fact that undertaking such an enterprise does not require the existence of any supernatural beings. All it requires is the willingness to look beyond yourself to find something greater and more important.

That search transcends religion. It is a vital part of life, for it is what gives life meaning. Will everyone agree on whether or not someone's decision is the right one? Certainly not. For some people, such a search will be ultimately destructive, as religion can lead people to make horrible decisions. Which is all the more reason to celebrate tales like TLTWATW, because they encourage people to think about what causes may be worth living for. They spark the imagination and they remind us all that we can be a part of something greater than ourselves. That ought to be something all of us, from evangelists to atheists, can agree on.